A Few Finishes

Subtitle: Joy Journal

Today I'm celebrating a few finishes....but first....a few Mother Nature moments.

This is one of the first butterflies I've seen...and it played around on the lilac for while.

And this morning the ducklings were more visible. They still didn't scoot into the water....but mom was keeping an eye on me. 

And now for the finishes! I'm all done with an order of 300 Christmas matches with a few winter blue snowflake ones thrown in. That was a lot of cutting...folding...and glueing. 

Folly 101 puts hostess bags together with things like napkins, a candle and a box of matches. They like to get this done well in advance of the hustle and bustle of Christmas so I've got that covered....pun intended. I've been working on them here and there for a few weeks in the evenings....after having cut most of the papers on our road trip to Perry a few months ago.      

Nice to have this project finished and off the dining room table. 

   

And ALL of my journals projects got mailed today! Thank you Paul for doing that on your bike...which makes parking so much easier. Enclosed is an altered art journal and 3 junk journals for Lynn, an altered journal and a junk journal for Brenda, and Becky's junk journal is on it's way to Tracie for her to add to for our Junk Journal Journey. 

I'll be getting Brenda's to work on when Becky is ready to send it. I've loved this new art exchange so far! Each journal will be so unique.

Remember my art paper Kawandi quilt project? It became a cover for a junk journal that I made for Brenda with all the leftover papers she gave me for her altered journal. 

I tore off a strip of a rainbow hand dyed fabric for the closure. It's a little long but I didn't want to give up any of the colors. It coordinates so well with the papers.

Brenda can decide if she wants to shorten it. 

Traditional Kawandi quilts often have a colorful floating patch called tikeli. 

I added one under the button for stability...and a bright one on the back.

 

Here's a little glimpse inside....a lot of this and that.

There are a couple of these little cat paintings in Brenda's altered art journal...

and now there's one here.

At the other end of this tiny page are a couple of photographs of her dog from a Christmas photo card she had in her pile. 

I really enjoyed working on these projects...they've been a labor of love. I actually have a junk journal of my own that now I can start working in. And I was tickled to hear from Ellen today....she is inspired to create what she is going to call a joy journal. She found a book of handmade papers at an estate sale and she will include things from An Ounce of Joy I sent out several years ago. That makes me so happy! I think joy journal is a much better name than junk journal...and I told her I may have to adopt if for my own. 

Let's hear it for fabulous finishes....and fresh starts with joy journals! 

ALL Day Long

It rained almost ALL day long...and I spent almost ALL day long in the studio and loved every minute of it. I worked on everyone's journals and felt good about everything I did.

But before I headed upstairs....as usual I sat at the puzzle table with my breakfast and coffee. It was dark in the condo because of the heavy rain clouds.

I had the light on bright...and put my glow in the dark rocks under it while I worked hoping to charge them up. Once I got going it became clear that I was going to be able connect the two sides...so that became my morning mission. 

I don't know what I was more excited about....the fact that when I turned the light out the condo was dark enough for the rocks to glow...

...or the fact that I have my side to side path. It's all good.

 

I have LOVED working in Becky's little junk journal. I'm going to call our project the Junk Journal Journey...I love a good alliteration. I wrote about our new art group project here: https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2025/04/rebirth.html

We've all see each other's original journals...and we are not going to see our own again until they've made their way around the circle. These are Becky's front and back covers....and just today I added a closure. 

Here is a glimpse inside the journal she created which includes a wide variety of papers giving us all kinds of places to play. 

It's hard to know when to stop actually...there needs to be room for everyone else to play. But there are lots of spaces and places including little pockets so I think I can do a little more. 

I'm really having a good time with this....and I just hope that's true for everyone else. 

I worked on this pretty spread....this is how it looked when I started. Since we're keeping things a surprise....I can't share what I did. I'm looking forward to getting Brenda's journal that Becky has been working on in a few weeks. We will keep each journal about a month before sending it onto the next person. 

Becky added this bottle and flower to the inside cover...and the paint tubes are on a fold out page. 

I added something kind of special alongside that green bottle. I think Becky will like it and everyone else can still add to it. 

I made an executive decision to show the cover with the new closure. I had this piece of silk ribbon that worked well which is much prettier in person. It doesn't seem to interfere with the flowers cut outs.

I made just a few other minor adjustments to the cover....I wonder if Becky can tell.

Did I say I had fun ALL day long!